Another first time builder...

[seedtick]

cut two at a time instead of one at a time

that way, as long as your cut is straight, the angles will match up

you'll only have to worry about a straight cut instead of two straight cuts AND matching angles

 

[gbinga]

Definitely cut both at once so as to match the angles.

The way I did mine was with a circular saw sled. Just a strip of plywood, however long you want it to be, with a fence on one edge to guide the edge of the baseplate on the saw. Make the strip a little wide, so that the first time you run the saw down the length of it, the cut line will be established. So long as you are using the same saw and blade, the cut line will always be right where the edge of the plywood is.

In use, you put the sled on top of the work, line up the cut line where you want it, and clamp it in place. The fence guides the saw, and your cut goes right where you wanted it to.

The only tricky part of this is clamping the sled to a couple of little skinny pieces of stock like you'e make rub rails out of and not have the sled rock around all over the place. Cutting two pieces of stock at once will help, or better yet all four, if your sled is long enough. You can also put scrap pieces that are the same thickness as your stock under the sled to support it, if that helps.

What I'm calling a "sled" might also be called a "shooting board". I'll try to post a picture of mine later when I get a chance. Some of this babble might seem a lot more obvious when you see the device.

George

 

[gbinga]

Here is something better than a picture of my saw guide;

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_jo ... 83497.html

http://wayneofthewoods.com/circular-saw ... guide.html

Both of these links describe the sort of saw guide I'm talking about.

Turns out a "sled" is a fixture for making relatively short cross cuts, and a "shooting board" is, as I already knew, more properly a fixture for cleaning up miter cuts with a hand plane. Looks like most people call this a saw guide. This type of device is handy for ripping a sheet of plywood, or tapering just about anything. You can buy saw guides like this at a woodworking supply, but they are so easy to make that it seems pointless to do so.

It occurs to me that there are also tapering jigs meant for use on a table saw. One of those would also work, so long as the workpiece wasn't so long and heavy as to make supporting it a problem as you fed it into the saw. And really, if you just wanted to make one specific taper, you could pretty easily make your own table saw jig. I may actually try that the next time I scarf something... making an adjustable tapering jig would be a bit of work, but a fixed one ought to be simple.

So there are a couple of ways to do it. Just make sure to keep track of your fingertips, no matter which method you use.

George

 

[rpecot]

Thanks George. That helps a lot. I was going the table saw jig route. Not very user friendly when you're cutting 8' long boards.

 

[rpecot]

Progress is a little slow during the week. No pictures.... Glued two ribs in place. This weekend, I hope to glue in the third and round over the edges on the rub rails and get them glued on. If I get that far, I'll be happy. If I can flush trim the side panels to the rub rails, that would be awesome. If I glue the scarf joint on the bottom panels, I will be #$*%in' ecstatic. :lol:

 

[rpecot]

Gluing up the third and final rib:

Rub rail profile:

I put 1/2" radius on the bottom and 1/8" radius on the top. Once I get the clamps off the ribs, I'll start trying to fit the rail to the boat. I'm hoping the oak will bend well. I seem to remember seeing someone's post (don't know if it was here or somewhere else?) where they cracked the oak rails trying to bend them. I ran them through the planer to thin them down somewhat from the 3/4" thickness.

 

[rpecot]

Well, I had my first big uh-oh today. Gluing up the scarf joint for the bottom of the boat, I was trying to balance 40 lbs over the center of my clamping set-up. Well, gravity won the battle and gave me a bit of a set back. :evil: :twisted: :evil: Damn gravity!

Anyway, here it is:

Once the glue is dry, I'll take a look at it and assess if I can still work with it. Of course, the bottom will get glassed, and any doubt I had about glassing the inside is now gone :lol: If, that is, I can still use the ply.

 

[oldsparkey]

That's exactly why I don't like or use scarf joints.

Chuck.

 

[seedtick]

not sure what i'm looking at

is that a broken scarf joint?

doesn't look like a joint as the wood grain across the break is continuous

 

[rpecot]

not sure what i'm looking at

is that a broken scarf joint?

doesn't look like a joint as the wood grain across the break is continuous

I guess I could have been a little more descriptive. My work surface was not as wide as the plywood, so I had a wide board underneath the two plys to clamp onto. At intervals, I had pieces of wood underneath the ply to keep it somewhat level. The scarf joint is not shown, it is just to the right of the photo. I had some weight balanced precariously on the center of the joint. It tipped while I had my back turned (I guess it knew I wasn't looking :twisted: ) and fell over. The crack on the left is where I had a board placed (underneath). The crack on the right is where the load landed.

 

[Bilgerat]

Since you're glassing, I'd make a wild a$$ guess that you can soak both cracks with epoxy, force it all back together and be good to go. Now, don't take my guess for gospel, I've never built a boat. Done a bit of glassing, but not on something like this.

Mike

 

[oldsparkey]

40 pounds !!!!! Just a few pounds does the trick , to much weight and you squeeze all the epoxy out and make it an epoxy starved joint. All I ever use is a small red brick or two at the most , normally less then that.

With some luck and a fair amount of epoxy and then later on glass on each side you should be able to salvage it.

Or you could just play it safe and cut out a new bottom.

Chuck.

 

[rpecot]

Since you're glassing, I'd make a wild a$$ guess that you can soak both cracks with epoxy, force it all back together and be good to go. Now, don't take my guess for gospel, I've never built a boat. Done a bit of glassing, but not on something like this.

Mike

Mike - we're thinking along the same lines. I was going to give that a try before trashing the bottom and starting over.

 

[Bilgerat]

Another idea just popped in my head. (Be very afraid when that happens!) :shock:

If you're not sure of the patch, what if you also cut a piece of plywood that completely fills the space between the sides and ribs over the broken area? Epoxy that to the bottom and no one is likely to even notice since this is thin ply. The only real downside I can think of is the weight will be a pound or so higher.

Mike

 

[oldsparkey]

Let me pose a ..What If Question.

What if you can repair it , will you have worries about it when paddling down some desolate area with stumps , logs and the rest in the water the boat could run up on. When that happens you really want a good solid bottom so it does not crack or break on you.
At this time the damage is already there , can it be repaired to the original condition , possibly and might even be better. You will not know till the boat is together and you are paddling it. Not the best time to think about replacing the bottom.

What about stepping in it and then getting out and would that area be under your feet or would it be behind the seat so you can't see what it is doing.

For the price of a single sheet of wood you could have a nice , safe , secure , bottom in the boat by replacing the broken ( half) area of the bottom of the boat. At the worse it would require two more sheets of wood to make a new bottom for it if you went that way.

Or just patch it like mentioned by Bilgerat which would reinforce it and do the trick , the center rib will be over the scarf joint which you said is not damaged.

Chuck.

 

[bluegrasslover]

You know I'm on my first boat so I don't have any real experience in this area but if it were me, knowing how much time and effort I'm putting into mine so far, I would spend another $11 and get another sheet. No doubt.

 

[Jimmy W]

If you can't force it back together like Bilgerat said, then you could make a saw cut along the cracks to remove some material then flatten it and fill the cuts with epoxy and wood flour mix. It would be about the same as the butt joints that many of us use anyway except that it wouldn't have to go all the way across. I might double up the glass on each side over that area. Another piece of plywood over it and overlapping the area by 2 or 3 inches could be added if it made you more comfortable.

Jimmy

 

[rpecot]

First of all, thanks all of the ideas and questions. I appreciate them all.

What if you can repair it , will you have worries about it when paddling down some desolate area with stumps , logs and the rest in the water the boat could run up on.

Short answer: No.

I have never intended for this to be my backwater, middle-of-nowhere, squeal-like-a-pig, exploration boat. If, after I build this thing, I can take my son fishing a few times, and maybe just myself once or twice, that would be great. The reason I'm building this boat is for the experience. As I mentioned in my first post, I've had my heart set on building the Bear Mountain Prospector Canoe for some time now, but I figured I'd start with this one to get a little experience and build a little confidence (especially when I glass it :roll: ) Chuck, your point is totally valid, it's just not my main concern at this point.

I would spend another $11 and get another sheet. No doubt.

Greg, thanks for the perspective. Hadn't really thought about it like that. I'm not going to invest a whole heck of a lot of time on a repair before this becomes the answer I've been looking for. 8)

 

[rpecot]

40 pounds !!!!! Just a few pounds does the trick , to much weight and you squeeze all the epoxy out and make it an epoxy starved joint. All I ever use is a small red brick or two at the most , normally less then that.

With some luck and a fair amount of epoxy and then later on glass on each side you should be able to salvage it.

Or you could just play it safe and cut out a new bottom.

Chuck.

Yeah, that might have been overkill. My son has 2 20 lb dumbells (how fitting ) and at the time it seemed like it would do the trick. It tricked me alright. :evil:

Just to be clear, the bottom is not attached to the boat at this time, so I have many options for repair. The $11 replacement part is looking more and more attractive as I sit here and think about it.

 

[gbinga]

...The $11 replacement part is looking more and more attractive as I sit here and think about it.

I tend to be hard headed about stuff like that, try not to through anything in the trash even when it didn't cost enough to be worrying about it. Many times I've spent more time and effort than the piece was worth and kicked myself for not just getting a new one.

On the other hand, you had some time and effort tied up in making the scarf joint...

Probably ought to bite the bullet and get new wood. One of the benefits of using cheap ply. If this had happened to a $60 sheet of marine ply that you had to special order from out of town, THEN you'd be aggravated!

George